A History of French Literature

The preface to A History of French Literature by Edward Dowden says that qualified in knowledge the writer was not, and could not be, and adds that no one can pretend to know the whole of a vast literature. The text says that the story of Alexander, from his birth and his education by Aristotle and the enchanter Nectanebus to the division of his empire between his twelve peers, is a series of marvellous adventures.

The text says Bossuet's polemic against Protestantism is sufficiently represented by his Exposition de la Doctrine Catholique, published in 1671, and the Histoire des Variations des Églises Protestantes, from 1688. The Histoire des Variations des Églises Protestantes is called, in its fifteen books, an attempt to overwhelm the contending Protestant communions by one irresistible attack. The text says that only one volume, L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution, was accomplished, and that it can stand alone as a work of capital importance.